
We've reached the penultimate day of tennis on the men's side at Wimbledon with two enticing semifinals in store for us on Friday between players who have plenty of familiarity with one another.
(Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
Daniil Medvedev, playing the best grass-court tennis of his career, will be out to avenge his semifinal loss to Carlos Alcaraz at this stage last year, while the Spaniard will look to move one win away from defending his title.
Then, there's seven-time champion Novak Djokovic, who will meet Italian Lorenzo Musetti for a sixth time -- hoping to avoid another wild encounter to preserve his health.
Will we see an upset here, or perhaps two? Let's break down both semifinals and hand out some best bets for Wimbledon on July 12.
It's hard to say Carlos Alcaraz looks to be playing his A-level tennis right now. Sure, he won the French Open just a month ago, but in doing so he played two utterly sloppy matches to skate by into the winner's circle and went on to drop a match on grass at Queen's Club just a couple weeks later in the second round.
Alcaraz is struggling a bit with shot selection and spraying too many errors around the court, which is why I'm fearful for him here against Medvedev.
The Russian has an excellent game for grass with his big serve and other-worldly defense, forcing even the best players to make unusual mistakes. Alcaraz already looks a bit shakier than normal, and with his serve lacking I'm not even sure he can use the serve-and-volley to success as he's done over the years against Medvedev.
Medvedev is finally putting it all together on grass, a surface he hasn't had as much experience on that he'd have hoped by now.
He looks to be in top form coming into this one after an impressive win over Jannik Sinner, and with that level and some rest coming his way courtesy of Grigor Dimitrov's retirement in the fourth round, he's poised for another solid showing against Alcaraz -- a player he's defeated twice in seven meetings.
Best Bet for Medvedev vs Alcaraz: Medvedev +4.5 Games (-105 at DraftKings)
The second match of the day from the All England Club may lack the same sort of drama and intrigue as the first.
Yes, Musetti has defeated Djokovic once before in their six meetings and wound up taking a lead in two of those encounters, but the common denominator for all this marginal success against the World No. 2 is that they've been played on clay.
He's stood no chance against Djokovic on a hardcourt, winning just nine games in four sets played, and in general he's not been the same on faster surfaces.
He's certainly had to work for his wins here, too, dropping at least one set in every round -- and even with some wins leading into Wimbledon he wasn't tasked with defeating anyone of real note.
Given the lack of quality on grass and the progressive fatigue that he's built up, I'm not seeing a way in here for Musetti to out forth his best performance against Djokovic on a quicker surface.
The seven-time Wimbledon champion has lost just four times on grass since 2013 and despite some fair questions about his surgically-repaired knee he should use his expert defense to great avail here to win quickly over a player he's handled on numerous occasions.
Best Bet for Musetti vs Djokovic: Under 34.5 Games (-105 at DraftKings)
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